Virgin Wines for sale

The online wine merchant’s parent company, Direct Wines, is understood to be reviewing its ownership of the British operations of Virgin Wines. The American arm of the business is not affected.

Direct Wines is one of the largest specialist online retailers in the world. It also owns Laithwaite’s wine merchant and runs the Sunday Times Wine Club. The group had sales of £353m in the year to June 2012.

Insiders said Hawesko, a German online wine seller, is the favourite to buy Virgin if a sale goes ahead. It is not clear how much the business would fetch.

Direct Wines was founded as Bordeaux Direct in 1969 by Tony Laithwaite when he started bringing back